Carbonaceous articles often define such objects as mechanical parts, filtration matrices, absorbent material or catalyst supports. Properties of the carbonaceous articles include porosity, weight, strength, temperature stability or inertness suitable for such applications. For example, solid carbon or carbon foam may form the carbonaceous articles.
However, prior techniques utilized to make the carbonaceous articles with the properties as desired require expensive specialty precursors and complicated process steps. Difficulty in controlling precise operating conditions throughout such techniques limits ability to achieve the properties desired. In addition, previous processes employed to produce the carbon foam yield uneconomical small batches with insufficient quantities for some applications.
A previous approach for making the articles involves several steps including a) indiscriminate mixing of binder pitch and carbon particles, b) forming the articles' shapes, c) baking resulting preforms of the articles, d) impregnating different pitch into the preforms, and e) carbonizing the binder and impregnating pitches. Insufficient carbon yield as a result of the binder pitch in the preforms necessitates the impregnating in order to achieve desired density of the articles. With regard to process undesirability, baking and impregnating steps require precise control of temperature to avoid pitch flowing and foaming. The carbonizing also causes weight loss and volume change resulting in cracks within the articles, deformation of the shapes and defects due to the binder pitch content and non-uniformity in composition of the preform.
Therefore, a need exists for carbonaceous articles and methods of manufacturing the carbonaceous articles.